News

Much like the hunt for a place to live in the Bay Area, the search for child care is getting harder as prices rise. Over the past four years, the median cost of childcare in the nine-county Bay Area increased 40 percent, according to research from Oakland’s Insight Center for Community Economic Development. In San […]

Gavin Newsom deserves credit for his unprecedented proposal to pay down California’s pension debt. But don’t kid yourself: The amount is a pittance compared to the overall shortfall of the state’s retirement funds. The real test will be whether the new governor supports fundamental and essential pension law changes sought by his predecessor, Jerry Brown, […]

For the first time in its history, the Bay Area has more than 4 million jobs, powered by a continuing economic boom in the nine-county region that in August produced the most robust month for hiring in more than two years, state labor reports revealed Friday. “It’s a great milestone for the Bay Area to […]

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday set the stage for higher PG&E utility bills by signing legislation to ease the impacts from the shutdown of the Diablo Canyon facility, California’s last remaining nuclear power plant. San Francisco-based PG&E intends to phase out the reactors of its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County […]

The North Face is packing up all that gear and moving its headquarters, along with hundreds of jobs, out of the Bay Area. The outdoor activewear and gear maker’s parent company, VF Corp., announced this week that it is splitting its outdoors and denim businesses into two publicly traded companies. The outdoors operation in Alameda […]

The heart of the nation’s tech sector, the astronomically expensive Santa Clara County, leads the state in residents looking to move out of town, a new report found. Using property searches and census data, analysts at realtor.com found that a larger share of residents are leaving Santa Clara County — home to tech behemoths Google […]

Silicon Valley will continue to boom for the foreseeable future, helping to spur a strong economy throughout the Bay Area, but the region’s surge will exacerbate housing and traffic woes locally, economic and political experts warned Thursday. Those rosy and forbidding assessments emerged during a San Jose State University economic summit, whose headline speakers insisted […]

Cupertino leaders are considering a restructuring of the city’s business license fees by imposing taxes on employers based on the number of people who work for them, municipal officials said Tuesday — a levy that could jolt Apple. Alarmed by increasingly challenging commutes and skyrocketing home prices, Cupertino officials have turned to the prospect of […]

Mountain View officials are contemplating a series of models, including one that could impose a tax of as much as $5.5 million a year on the largest employers in Mountain View, according to materials being prepared for a city council subcommittee meeting scheduled for Wednesday. . . . The restructured taxes could be based on […]

In the Bay Area, Tesla’s biggest impact is seen in the number of jobs the company has created. Alameda County, which is home to Tesla’s Fremont factory, claimed 5,081 Tesla workers as residents, while 5,737 jobs came from residents of Santa Clara County, 735 from San Mateo County and 352 hailed from Sacramento. The study […]

California has surpassed the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth largest economy. Federal data released Friday show California’s gross domestic product rose by $127 billion from 2016 to 2017, surpassing $2.7 trillion. The UK’s economic output slightly shrunk over that time as it prepared to leave the European Union.

California State University students may see their second consecutive tuition increase next year, but any decision on the $288 tuition increase question won’t come for another two months. The prospect of a delay, however, didn’t stop some students and faculty members from showing up to CSU headquarters in Long Beach on Tuesday in order to […]

PG&E monthly electricity bills rose on March 1, the company said Monday — but, thanks to a drop in cost for natural gas usage, overall bills are headed for their first decline in years. On March 1, electricity bills for PG&E customers rose to an average of $111.59 for the typical residential customer who consumes […]

As the Bay Area scrambles to find housing for its growing population, developers are running into another kind of shortage: There aren’t enough construction workers to build the homes the region needs. Builders throughout the area say they are struggling to recruit skilled laborers. Some bring in employees from Southern California or even Seattle, putting […]

PG&E has arrived at its goals for renewable energy deliveries earlier than what’s required by a statewide mandate, the company said Tuesday — but fresh challenges loom due to the embattled utility’s reliance on a nuclear energy plant in central California that’s slated for deactivation. The company stated that it has reached the 2020 renewable […]